CUNA Tech Council Honors CU Innovators

Four credit unions were named winners of the 2009 CUNA Technology Council's best practices awards at the group's recent 14th annual summit meeting in San Francisco.

They were the $1.9 billion Tinker FCU of Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma; the $311 million Nassau Financial FCU of Westbury, N.Y.; the $18 billion State Employees' CU of Raleigh, N.C.; and the $230 million Envision CU of Tallahassee, Fla.

Tinker FCU was honored in the technology infrastructure category for its virtualization and storage area networking work; SECU won the information-security privacy honor for its member photo ID program; Nassau Financial was feted in sales management and marketing for its in-house MCIF work, and Envision won the miscellaneous category for projects that included a centralized data conversion interface, streamlined coin and currency ordering processes, and trend analysis and account research tools.

The winners were selected by a panel of CUNA Technology Council members and are chosen each year.

Three credit unions also received honorable mention awards: the $1 billion FORUM Credit Union in Indianapolis for an interactive intelligence program, the $1.3 billion Technology CU in San Jose, Calif., for an online banking administrative tool, and the $140 million Beehive FCU of Rexburg, Idaho, for its in-branch video display software switching system.

Winner presentations and more information about the awards are available by selecting the best practices link at www.cunatechnologycouncil.org.

Cyveillance Charges Gaps in Cyber Defenses

Malware and phishing threats across the Internet are going undetected more than half the time by major antivirus software and antiphishing filters, a big player in cyber intelligence claims in a new report.

Cyveillance said its testing showed that only 29% of malware attacks and 44% of phishing threats were detected. It also said that its test of two popular consumer phishing protection applications only blocked or warned against phishing attacks as little as 4% of the time.

"With the influx of increasingly sophisticated attacks and social networking sites as targets, AV engines are finding it difficult to keep up with and protect against morphing malware and phishing attacks, specifically in the first 24-hour time period when the most damage occurs," said Panos Anastassiadis, president/CEO of Cyveillance in Arlington, Va.

"Organizations must embrace a combination of reactive and proactive security measures if they intend to stay ahead of today's dynamically changing threats," he said.

Cyveillance said in its report that there were an average of more than 23,000 unique phishing attacks per month in the first half of 2009, including on more than 200 newly targeted brands, and that the United States and China continue to host the majority of malware executables, combining for 54% of such detected attacks during the same time period.

Cyveillance said it tested 13 popular anti-virus solutions between May 12 and June 10. The full report is available at www.cyveillance.com.

CO-OP Adds Mobile, ATM, Deposit Re-Sellers

CO-OP Financial Services said it has added six more partners as distributors of its mobile banking solution and four more business partner agreements for other company services.

The six partners added for CO-OP Mobile since mid-July are Credit Union Centers of Indiana, Credit Union Service Network of Colorado, the Kentucky Credit Union League, the New Jersey Credit Union League, the Tennessee Credit Union League and Universal Sharing Network Inc. of New York.

"With the addition of six new CO-OP Mobile business partners, we expect to accelerate our new business pace thorough their knowledge of the needs of local credit unions and their outstanding reputations for adding value to the products and services they represent," said Ritch Ellis, vice president of national sales for CO-OP in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

CUSN and NJCUL also have signed onto the CO-OP My Deposit online home deposit tool; as has KCUL for CO-OP's network of 28,000 surcharge-free ATMs. Synergent Technology Services, Westbrook, Maine, a CO-OP Network business partner since January, has also signed an agreement to sell CO-OP My Deposit, the company said

CO-OP Mobile was launched in February and integrates into the CO-OP Next Generation Network, the company said. Credit union members can use the CO-OP Mobile application via their mobile devices to verify balances, view transaction history and transfer funds between accounts.